I was deeply saddened to read in the Scotsman this week the results of a survey of LGBT people living in Scotland. Despite excellent advances in civil rights, an overwhelming majority reported experiencing bullying and physical assaults in either school, the workplace or in the communities in which they lived.
This is surprising as Scotland led the way on gay marriage. It was also the first part of the UK to repeal the draconian Thatcherite policy Section 28. As Ian McKellen once said of it at a Stonewall event, “It was simply throwing red meat to the lions”. The policy led to increased homophobia and put an end to funding for many support schemes throughout the UK that helped young people struggling with their sexuality, as well as many cultural projects to help raise awareness.
Scotland, using the new powers promised by Labour at the time and without a House of Lords, repealed the clause almost instantly when Tony Blair came to power. This was an emotional time for gay people of my generation, as depicted in the wonderfully warm crowd-pleasing film Pride, which was based on a community not too dissimilar to mine.
Another political irony concerns the Stagecoach founder Brian Souter, one of Scotland’s wealthiest businessmen – and a major SNP donor. In 2000 Souter embarked on a personal crusade to uphold Section 28. Thanks to the campaign there were huge billboards scattered all over Edinburgh featuring a picture of a doe-eyed infant and the caption “Protect Our Children and Keep the Clause”.
This did nothing but harm to LGBT Scots, fuelling ignorance and prejudice in a beautiful but often parochial Scotland, best described by Irvine Welsh as a complex mix of “Calvinism, Catholicism, alcoholism and bad weather”.
I have been a Londoner for some 25 years and still visit my hometown in Scotland regularly. I support the SNP and I supported the case for independence. Last summer, when taking part in a Channel 4 referendum special in Edinburgh, I felt sick when I saw Souter sitting on the same side as me as I knew I was going to have to say something to him. I told him his actions had contributed to making the lives of many gay people miserable, especially the young, and added to their sense of persecution and alienation.
As a teenager I was spat on each day. With “queer” chalked on the back of my blazer, kids waited outside my home shouting abuse. Eventually I was sent to a psychiatric unit for counselling about my sexuality and was reliant on diazepam by the age of 17 to quell my anxiety.
I spoke from a weary, battle-worn heart when I confronted Souter – at almost 50 I am tired of fighting for all these years. Souter insisted that he never wanted to hurt anyone. He explained that he was a Christian man who believed in protecting family values but he was deeply sorry for any hurt that he had caused. I can imagine that the SNP are keen to forget this matter and I do not bring it up to sling political mud at a movement I support, but it needs to be acknowledged.
Perhaps the decision to book Karen Dunbar, a talented performer who happens to be a lesbian, to host the Commonwealth games opening ceremony in Glasgow, which also featured John Barrowman kissing a man, sent a message that Scotland was supporting its LGBT community and that it was time to embrace a more modern Scotland.
Yet the results of this week’s survey show just how much gestures like this are still desperately needed. More funding for work in schools around LGBT acceptance, more work around bullying, more role models for the young who are prepared to stand up and be counted in all walks of public life and, above all, more funding for the arts, which in all its forms offers an injection of soul into our lives. Through such actions, LGBT people in Scotland may find the happiness that sadly continues to escape them because of their struggle for acceptance.
